Inappropriate Content: SCOTUS, POTUS, and Fetus

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Samuel Alito, a federal appeals court judge chosen by President George W. Bush for the U.S. Supreme Court, has a staunchly conservative judicial philosophy that has earned him the nickname of "Scalito."

Scalito? Wow, that's like a joke, only without the funny. Those crazy lawyers.

I haven't seen anything really illuminating about Alito, possibly because I haven't been looking, although his Wikipedia entry includes a brief rundown of a few of the cases he's tried.

In 1991 he wrote a dissenting opinion in Panned Parenthood v. Casey. There's going to be a lot of hemming and hawing about that case. (Of course, there will be hemming and hawing about every little aspect of this case, as November is sweeps month, and every little thing the cable networks can blow out of proportion is one more hour that goes by without Wolf Blitzer having to rob a bank himself. For example, AP thought it would be newsworthy to get a photo-op with the nominees' wife and kids (left). "Senator, how will the fact that Judge Alito's children are attractive and his wife is, it appears, constipated, affect the confirmation hearings?" At least the photographer was in touch with the whole Dali-does-politics vibe and made sure to put them under a nice big portrait of Clinton. American politics hurts my brain.) I myself wrote a whole thing of hemming and hawing about the Casey case and then decided it was mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric. I happen to agree with a great deal of the mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric you'll find out there and am not opposed to writing it myself; I just figure why not put a link to The Huffington Post up instead? Then you can read mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric written by Alec Baldwin. You want to know what Alec Baldwin thinks about the 2006 senate races. You can tell your friends you don't care what some silly movie star thinks about politics. You can tell your parents you don't care. You can even tell yourself you don't care. But I know you're gonna go read what Alec Baldwin writes, and maybe even Larry David and Ellen, too. You can't fool the blogosphere!

But I digress, because it's fun. At right, Alito gears up for the fight by standing in a perspective distorting "z-machine" with Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter. The Alito fight will be loud, long, and much of it even less witty than the Judge's nickname. (No, really, "Scalito" — even that crazy mofo Antonin Scalia has more dignity than that.) Kathleen Reardon thinks Dems should "take the high road" and try to avoid a nasty nomination fight. (Kathleen Reardon blogs at the Huffington Post, but is not famous. Some people draw that line at Nora Ephron. I prefer to use Senator Evan Bayh or, if I'm feeling charitable inclinations toward humanity, Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy. [Along with my usual inclinations, which are less toward humanity as a whole, and more toward, say, Judge Alito's son.])

The moderates are wrong. Matthew Yglesias reminds us that, for all the sound and the fury, hot button issues signify a bit more than nothing:

Nationwide, there are 246 abortions per 1,000 live births. In some conservative states, the rate is much lower. Only 154 per 1,000 in Arkansas, for example. But even 154 per 1,000 is a lot more than zero per 1,000. Some "red" states like Georgia (226) and North Carolina (230) barely differ from the national average. Meanwhile, "91.3% of all abortions occur in the woman's home state." If Roe is overturned and many conservative states implement abortion bans, that will be a big deal for the women who live in those states.